Teenagers Reacting To Windows 95 Will Make You Feel Like A Senior Citizen

Did you spend Monday dragging your butt to the gym, washing last night’s dishes, taking out the trash, and trying to get work done? Yes? No? Want to feel old either way? Then check out these 18 and 19 year olds trying to use that big honking Dell computer from your childhood with Windows 95 on it.

The beginning of this video shows these children attempting to turn on a Dell where “the monitor is bigger than the actual computer itself.” They press the big button on the monitor, and either the light turns on or doesn’t. The teenagers have a hard time realizing, though, that the monitor is separate from the actual computer itself.

Then, as the computer starts up, the kids remark on the buzzing noises that the Dell makes. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a computer make these sounds before in my life,” one girl says. They also remark on how long it takes for the computer to boot up.

Of the Windows 95 interface, all the reactions basically amount to “everything looks so dull and ancient!” Then there’s the requisite confusion over using Internet Explorer and AOL. When asked to reflect on how far we’ve come technologically, “It’s just crazy to think like my cellphone is more powerful than this,” one teenage boy says. Indeed.

I graduated from Georgetown University in 1994 so a full one year before this revolutionary technology came out. Windows 95 is arguably one of the foundations of the modern digital economy. Arick Wierson